Some residents can’t get Colorado news on TV. The FCC could fix that.

TV viewers in Durango might live in Colorado, but their news comes from Albuquerque, New Mexico. That’s because La Plata County is what’s considered an “orphan county.” It’s too far away from Denver to have broadcasts beamed in. But apparently it’s not impossible. According to a story in The Durango Herald, DISH Network says bringing Front Range news to Durango TVs is “not technically unfeasible.” But, county staff in the area have to petition the feds.

Over the next several months, county staff will be assembling a petition for market modification to the Federal Communications Commission that demonstrates the need for in-state programming. Market modification is the process by which the FCC can modify a television broadcaster’s market boundaries, and a rule authorizing the local petitioning process took effect early this year. Before the rule’s establishment, only broadcast and satellite companies could petition the market.

Once this Colorado county sends a petition, the FCC will have 120 days to decide whether Colorado residents can be able to get Colorado news. If they say yes, “satellite operators must then reach agreements with each affiliate station,” such as ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and PBS.

For years, county staff and lawmakers in the area have been trying to get Colorado programming on the TVs of residents in these so-called orphan counties. One county commissioner in La Plata told the paper straight up: “Access to Denver TV is one of the highest priorities when I talk to people in the community.” The Herald has more on this effort and what it means here.

Gazette noted for not saying the spouse of its opinion page editor got money from a candidate

A Springs source pointed out to me that The Colorado Springs Independenthasn’t always made appropriate disclosures itself in coverage, like when reporting on the Trails and Open Spaces Coalition, a board on which its publisher sits and the paper itself describes as “influential.” The paper has disclosed its publisher’s board role in some stories mentioning TOSC, butnotall, and its editor tells me disclosures are “a subject that the Independent always has taken seriously.” (Disclosure: I’ve written for The Colorado Springs Independent.)

CLAIM: “Colorado is no longer a battleground state.” And why that could be bad for local TV stations

This week, one of Colorado’s most quoted pollsters and political analysts, Floyd Ciruli, made the above provocative and definitive statement in a blog post. The CliffsNotes version is this non-blue-collar state has gone to the Dems in the last two presidential cycles, is growing with millennials and Latinos, and has a Republican Party base that’s un-friendly to Donald Trump.

“The implications of this shift are not good for Colorado Republicans, local TV stations and people who would like to see Donald Trump between now and the election,” Ciruli wrote and left it at that.

So… why would it be bad for TV stations? Because battleground status means more political advertising, which means more revenue for in-state TV stations. Those revenues have increased in recent campaigns, as — thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and other trends — a greater share of ad buys come from super PACs and other third-party groups, which can be charged whatever the market will bear. (Official campaigns are entitled to buy air time at the lowest rates offered to other advertisers.) In 2013, CJR published a piece titled “Snow Job,” in which Sasha Chavkin tracked an avalanche of ad spending for Denver broadcasters and where that money went. (As I’ve written, Colorado campaign ad spending can be tough to track.)

What you missed on the front pages of newspapers across Colorado on Sunday

Did you spend all day hiking to the summit of your local 14er just to prove all the snow hadn’t yet melted so you wouldn’t lose your office pool and neglect to read all the news fit for the Sunday front pages of Colorado’s largest papers? If so, I’ve got you covered.

When Sandra Fish, one of our volunteers, sought to take pictures of election results in Park County, Colorado, she was told that state law banned phones and computers from the clerk’s office (it doesn’t). She eventually got the results, but only after filling out a form, waiting several days and paying for them.

Ex-Denver Post owner Dean Singleton’s autobiography is apparently in the works

This week I found a little media tycoon nugget buried in a Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Q-and-A with Colorado nonfiction author Dick Kreck, who recently published a new book about the state’s historical high society titled Rich People Behaving Badly. Apparently he’s also helping former Denver Post owner Dean Singleton pen his autobiography.

What are you working on now? Kreck: I’m in the very, very early stages of interviews and research for an autobiography I am signed up to co-write with former Denver Post owner and publisher William Dean Singleton, a pivotal figure in the modern history of American journalism who started in the newspaper business as a teenager in Texas and continues to be a major voice today. The book is probably two or three years down the road.

Kreck is a former reporter for The Denver Post. Singleton, known as a shrewd businessman and empire-building entrepreneur who started his media career as a paperboy in Texas and bought his first newspaper at 21, owned The Denver Post from 1987 until a few years ago when Digital First Media, whose primary owner is a New York City hedge fund, took it over. At one point Singleton owned the second-largest newspaper company in America.

Now for some news on the local media front from CJR’s United States Project

“There’s a lot of focus on Washington accountability on the part of journalists,” Sirota told Liberman for the CJR piece, about why he submitted the open records request that kicked off his reporting, “but comparatively little on state officials who have a huge amount of power and get little public scrutiny.”

Since Sirota’s big report, the International Business Times has laid off half the newsroom. Let’s be happy he’s still there.

Last thing. Like our state really needed this.

Colorado is growing, and fast. People want to move here. And last week, these two headlines out of Colorado did plenty to keep the allure alive: “Beer rains onto I-25 after semi-truck overturns,” and “Colorado town finds THC in its water.” Buuuuuut about that second headline. Once it bounced around the internet — you know why it might go viral — the Colorado Bureau of Investigation threw cold water on the claim. A next round of news stories walked back the weed-in-our-water narrative with the local sheriff’s office saying the initial test kit results are now believed to have been false positives. Looks like that one was just too good to be true. Even for Colorado.

*This roundup appears a little differently as a published version of a weekly e-mailed newsletter about Colorado local news and media. If you’d like to add your e-mail address for the unabridged versions, please subscribe HERE.

is a journalist in Colorado, and Columbia Journalism Review's Rocky Mountain contributor for the United States Project. Follow him on Twitter @CoreyHutchins and email him at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.

TWITTER

Newsletter Signup

OUR MISSION

The Colorado Independent's award-winning team of veteran investigative and explanatory reporters and news columnists aims to amplify the voices of Coloradans whose stories are unheard, shine light on the relationships between people, power and policy, and hold public officials to account. We strive to report the news with context, social conscience, and soul, and to give Coloradans the insight they need to promote conversation, understanding and progress in this square, swing state we call home.

BEATS

OUR MISSION

The Colorado Independent's award-winning team of veteran investigative and explanatory reporters and news columnists aims to amplify the voices of Coloradans whose stories are unheard, shine light on the relationships between people, power and policy, and hold public officials to account. We strive to report the news with context, social conscience, and soul, and to give Coloradans the insight they need to promote conversation, understanding and progress in this square, swing state we call home.